A/77/514 19. While all human rights are interconnected and mutually reinforcing, the intersection between culture and freedom of religion or belief for indigenous peoples draws considerable attention. The UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights observes that maintaining and strengthening their "spiritual relationship" with ancestral lands is "indispensable to their cultural life." Incidentally, indigenous peoples primarily cite cultural rights in complaints to the Human Rights Committee regarding spiritual practices.38 This is not to say that freedom of religion or belief is less practical/applicable, but it is less commonly cited and understood vis-à-vis indigenous peoples. Regional and domestic courts also invoke culture, property, or intellectual property law to protect indigenous spiritual practices.39 20. Several experts warn that analogizing "indigenous spirituality" for the non-indigenous world—often to gain public support—may decontextualize them. For instance, describing elders as their "priests" or indigenous lands as their (admittedly irreplaceable) "Church." The notion that religious groups may be rights-holders without some formal institution, organization, or other legal personality is unfamiliar to most modern, liberal legal systems.40 Yet as one interlocutor opined, "[i]ndigenous religions should not have to be likened to Judeo-Christian practices and beliefs to make them acceptable [or deemed worthy of protection]."41 Nor does international human rights law demand it: freedom of religion or belief is protected regardless of whether the State recognizes its existence. V. Key findings A. Forcibly assimilated and denied recognition 21. Harrowing historical experiences of colonization, forced assimilation, and dispossession have shaped and are inseparable from indigenous peoples' contemporary concerns for spiritual, cultural, and physical survival. Several States invoked variations of the Doctrine of Discovery ("Doctrine") to justify forcibly removing indigenous peoples from their lands.42 The Doctrine—developed in support of religious institutions' ambitions to "invade, capture, vanquish, and subdue [...] all Saracens and pagans, and other enemies of Christ"43 —furnished a "discovering" sovereign with "exclusive right" to "extinguish" indigenous peoples' pre-existing title and interests in their lands.44 Experts further describe forced sedentarization—placing migratory, mobile, or nomadic indigenous peoples into settlements—as causing loss of their spirituality by separating them from their lands. 22. Several reports of State efforts to further assimilation initiatives detail attempts to control indigenous women's sexuality and reproductive capacities, including sterilization of Native American women in the USA; "biological absorption" (via forced impregnation) in Australia's Stolen Generations; and Denmark's insertion of IUD devices into approximately 4,500 Greenlandic women and girls often without their consent.45 23. Other reports document the forced removal of indigenous children from their families and communities for distant, often religious institution-led schools, where they were "exclusively taught the dominant religion and culture" and prohibited from using their own 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 E.g. CCPR/C/110/D/2102/2011; CCPR/C/95/D/1457/2006; CCPR/C/84/D/879/1999; CCPR/C/33/D/197/1985. https://www.mdpi.com/2077-1444/12/10/869/htm,(p.7); https://www.iwgia.org/images/publications/0002_Land_Rights_of_Indigenous_Peoples_In_Africa.pd f; https://www.justiceinitiative.org/publications/strategic-litigation-impacts-indigenous-peoples-landrights,(pp.30-34). https://doi.org/10.18584/iipj.2011.2.4.4,(pp.3-4,8-11). Consultation-USA. https://doctrineofdiscovery.org/assets/pdfs/lcb154art1millerpdf.pdf; Submissions-United South and Eastern Tribes Sovereignty Protection Fund, Michael McNally. E/C.19/2012/CRP.2,(para.62). https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1050&context=facpubs,(p.67). https://www.gao.gov/assets/hrd-77-3.pdf; https://humanrights.gov.au/sites/default/files/content/pdf/social_justice/bringing_them_home_report.p df; https://www.justiceinfo.net/en/103874-denmark-greenland-traumatic-birth-control-campaign.html. 7